


you swoon, you sigh

by wrishwrosh



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-24 00:46:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16170146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrishwrosh/pseuds/wrishwrosh
Summary: Showing up to wedding after wedding alone is getting to be kind of a bummer. This is why it kind of sucks to mostly hang out with hockey players, whose only summer hobbies are golf and getting married. At this point, Nate’s only really into golf.





	you swoon, you sigh

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [growlery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/growlery/pseuds/growlery) in the [boysarehot](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/boysarehot) collection. 



> welcome to baby's first challenge fic! special thanks to growlery for this bananas fun prompt.
> 
> title from i won't say i'm in love, hercules.

It doesn’t really hit him until a week before Landy’s wedding, when Nate gets a confirmation email for his one lone, single plane ticket. Sure, Nate is technically young. He has his whole life ahead of him, whatever. But showing up to wedding after wedding alone is getting to be kind of a bummer. This is why it kind of sucks to mostly hang out with hockey players, whose only summer hobbies are golf and getting married. At this point, Nate’s only really into golf.

He decides to solve his problem by reaching out to the most vocally single person he knows.

 

 **Nate (11:21 AM):** _brutes are u taking anyone to landys wedding_

 

Tyson doesn’t respond within 30 seconds, so it’ll probably be about six hours before Nate hears anything. True to form, Nate has time to eat lunch, finish a solid workout, get through three pages of some boring-ass inspirational biography Sid’s making him read, and take a two hour nap before Tyson sends anything back.

 

 **Tbeauty (8:41 PM):** _oh fuckkkkkkk_

 **Tbeauty (8:41 PM):** _forgot to get a plus one_

 **Tbeauty (8:42 PM:** _shit landy’s never gonna let this go_

 **Tbeauty (8:43 PM):** _does your date have any friends who want to be my date_

 **Tbeauty (8:43 PM):** _can you ask her for me PLS_

 **Tbeauty (8:43 PM):** _that feels very grade school to ask but i'm desperate_

 

That was Nate’s plan. Inasmuch as he actually had one.

 

 **Nate (8:46 PM):** _lol cant ask her because she doesnt exist_

 **Nate (8:47 PM):** _i was actually kind of hoping ur date could get me a date but i guess not huh_

 

 **Tbeauty (8:49PM):** _yikes this is not an event i wanted to attend stag_

 **Tbeauty (8:49 PM):** _too much romance for me to handle on my own_

 **Tbeauty (8:49 PM):** _you and me need to stick together at the wedding_

 **Tbeauty (8:50 PM):** _show all those happy couples the power of friendship_

 

The power of friendship sounds a little bit more appealing than showing up alone. If nothing else, the chirping he’ll get for platonically dating Tys will be different from the chirping he’ll get for being single. Nate just wants to encourage a little creativity from his teammates.

 

 **Nate (8:52 PM):** _u kno i love the power of friendship_

 

 **Tbeauty (8:52 PM):** _i’m taking that as an unconditional and enthusiastic YES PLEASE TYSON BE MY FRIEND DATE_

 

It wasn’t _not_ that, which Tyson probably knows.

 

 **Tbeauty (8:53 PM):** _send me your flight info_

 **Tbeauty (8:53 PM):** _we can carpool_

\+ 

When Nate hops off the plane at LAX, it’s almost midnight the day before the wedding. Tyson is lying in wait for him at arrivals, perched casually on top of his tiny roller bag and scrolling through his phone.

Nate comes up behind him and kicks the bag a little, not quite hard enough to take the wheels out from under him. Tyson looks up at him and grins. “Hey, bud. Sorry about the boring welcome. I was going to make a sign on the plane, but I figured they might take my glitter glue at security.”

“What a loss,” says Nate.

“Right?” Tyson says as he stands up and slings an arm around Nate’s shoulders. “I’m an _artiste_. It’s a good thing you showed up when you did because I already got us an Uber.”

Tyson steers him in the direction of the cars. Nate is wiped, sleepwalking through the concourse in Tyson’s wake. They basically fly for a living, but it feels like Nate’s spent about 70 hours on a plane today.

Nate’s on the verge of dozing off in the Uber, eyes unfocused as he watches the lights of the highway slide by, when Tyson’s voice floats out of the darkness on the other side of the backseat.

“I’m glad we’re doing this,” he says. “I need a buffer between me and all the romantic wedding garbage, and you are the buffest guy I know.”

“Anytime, buddy,” Nate says, and means it. He lets the buff thing slide, because he knows Tyson can’t physically stop himself from flirting, and Nate’s too tired to come up with a funny enough response. It’s nice of Tyson to say, though, because they both definitely know buffer.

When they get to Landy’s stupid seaside venue, Tyson drags Nate’s sleepy corpse out of the car and into the hotel lobby. He props himself behind Tyson’s shoulder as Tyson checks himself in, squinting at the big painting behind the front desk to see if it’s _of_ anything.

He leans over to whisper his best guess in Tyson’s ear while the nice night receptionist lady is typing something. “Weird bird or two dicks side by side?” he asks, outlining the shape in the air.

“Two dicks for sure,” Tyson whispers back.

Then, the nice night receptionist lady looks up from her computer, grimacing apologetically at them from behind the desk. “Actually, sir, it looks like we’re overbooked for the Landeskog wedding.”

Nate loves when people call Tyson sir. It’s fucking hilarious.

“I’m so sorry for the inconvenience. I actually have instructions from the groom specifying that you two would be fine sharing for a night, or is that not the case?” She trails off.

“That big-headed fuck,” Tyson mutters.

“We’ll be fine,” says Nate, stepping forward. He just wants to go to bed. “Can we just have the room key?”

+

“Now this is luxury,” says Tyson, dumping his bag in the entryway of their room and making a beeline for the bed. He zeroes in on the pillows, squeezing them to check their firmness or whatever. Nate kicks Tyson’s bag into the closet and closes the door.

Tyson is right: the room they’re in is, in fact, very fancy. There’s a balcony that looks out over a huge pool, and lots of blowy white linen and sleek, expensive-looking wooden furniture. Trust Gabe to get married in the nicest possible resort. All the interior design distracts Nate, briefly, from the fact the the bed Tyson is rearranging is the only one in the room.

It won’t be the first time they’ve shared a bed, because they’re both pretty cuddly drunks. But Nate still would have appreciated a little warning. Just to be polite.

Tyson stops massaging the pillows, apparently happy with the level of fluffiness, and veers into the bathroom. “Nate! We got _robes_ ,” he yells through the wall. “Also, these toiletries smell, like, wonderful.”

“Wow, I’m so glad I could be here for your first time staying in a hotel room,” Nate yells back, rolling his eyes. “Also, uh, there’s only one bed? What do you say we should do about that?”

Tyson emerges from the bathroom, draped in an enormous white robe. “There’s only one bed, but—shit, feel this robe. Isn’t it so fucking plush?” He sticks out an arm and wags it in Nate’s direction until Nate caves and sort of pets it. It is really fucking plush. “What do you think the thread count is on this?”

Nate doesn’t know or care if robes even have thread counts. That’s the kind of shit that only Tyson thinks about. “The bed?” he says, in a possibly useless attempt to get Tyson back on track so they can go the fuck to sleep.

Tyson sits on the edge of said bed and shrugs, the robe falling off one shoulder. He’s somehow already shirtless. “The bed—there _is_ only one, but I’m cool with it if you are. You can call the front desk if you’re stressed about it,” he says, as if that’s how their friendship works at all. Tyson’s the one who says whatever he’s thinking and makes a fuss, and Nate’s the one who stands quietly a foot behind him and laughs about it. Tyson knows that Nate is never in one million years going to call the front desk about it.

“Anyway, I think this is a California king. No offense, Nate, but you aren’t _that_ big. We can share.”

+

“Move over, you enormous fucker,” Tyson whispers, attempting to shove Nate further away from him on the bed.

“I’m already on the edge! Stay on your own side,” Nate hisses. “Also, you have _all_ the blankets.”

In response, Tyson just tightens his grasp on the blanket cocoon he made for himself. Nate gives the sheet an experimental tug. It’s not like he’s actually cold, it’s summer in California. He just wouldn’t mind having a little more coverage. It doesn’t matter, because Tyson doesn’t give an inch.

“I’m gonna freeze to death,” says Nate.

“Go for it, have fun,” says Tyson. He rolls over, turning his back to Nate and trapping the edge of the blanket under his shoulder. “Good night.”

Nate briefly considers a wrestling match. Nate could move Tyson. Nate has two inches and twenty pounds on Tyson, and he doesn’t like to let Tyson forget it. It wouldn’t be the mature thing to do, but that rarely matters when it comes to T-Beauty. He settles for just reaching out a foot and shoving at Tyson’s calves, hard enough to send them off of Nate’s side. He wants his fucking leg room.

When Nate swims back into consciousness, the bedside alarm clock, which looks like a beautiful spaceship, says it’s early afternoon. He’s really warm, because at some point in the night he apparently won the battle for the blankets. Also, he slowly realizes, because Tyson is fully spooning him.

For a second he considers shoving Tyson’s leg off his hip or unhooking Tyson’s arm from around his chest. But honestly, he’s really fucking comfortable as is. He also thinks about bitching Tyson out for forgetting to set an alarm, but Nate didn’t set one either. Instead he just dozes there quietly, Tyson wrapped around his back like a baby koala.

Eventually, Tyson stirs. First, he groans, then he yanks the blankets back, then he rolls over, elbowing Nate in the kidneys on the way.

“Good morning,” Nate says.

“You’re a pretty solid pillow, Mac,” Tyson says. “Which is good, because I really thought a place this deluxe would have much firmer pillows. I want breakfast.”

Nate loses the rock paper scissors and has to go down to the lobby to get them coffee and Tyson’s order of “whichever muffin is the fanciest.” According to the big fancy wedding schedule posted up next to the front desk, they accidentally skipped some kind of combination golf-brunch event this morning. Nate’s a little bummed to miss out on golf. Tyson will probably be disappointed too. He’s a slut for a good brunch.

When he gets back up to their room, Nate passes Tyson his coffee and his gross dark chocolate-pecan pie muffin and says, “We slept through brunch. Hope your breakfast cake makes up for it.”

Tyson shrugs. “We’ll see more than enough of everybody tonight. Plus you clearly needed the sleep,” he says, like Nate didn’t wake up before him.

Part of being friends with Tyson is knowing what to just leave on the table. If Nate responded to all the dumb shit he said, neither of them would ever shut up. Sometimes Tyson just needs to talk to himself.

“All this wedding stuff is actually bullshit,” Tyson says, muffled by the hand he has over his mouth to catch the muffin crumbs. Nate appreciates the empty gesture towards manners. “I read some articles—or, like, some headlines, I looked at the pictures—and it’s all just wedding companies convincing people to spend money on dumb crap and calling it romance.”

“That’s a cool opinion,” says Nate, who has seen Tyson’s Instagram feed, and knows how much of his explore page is dedicated to videos of dogs as ring bearers, which he doesn’t like so nobody knows he watched them. Nobody, that is, except Nate.

Tyson nods sagely, slurping at his coffee. “Did you put sugar in this?” he asks.

As though Nate wouldn’t.

+

“As your official best friend and date, I think I have to tell you that the skinny tie is sorta try-hard,” Nate says, tightening his own, normal tie.

“I am actually trying very hard, thank you for noticing,” says Tyson. He bumps Nate to the side to fuss with his shirt collar in the bathroom mirror.

Tie aside, Tyson’s suit fits really well. He must have gone to a new tailor or something. Nate would ask about it, but they don’t really have time for a thousand jokes about Nate’s suit and probably also Nate’s ass.

“The ceremony is at 4:15, Brutes. Let’s hurry it up,” Nate says. This is a lie. The ceremony is at 5. However, Tyson is always, without fail, 45 minutes late to every single event he’s ever been invited to. At this point in their friendship, Nate has Tyson time management down to a finely tuned science.

As expected, they arrive exactly on time for the ceremony. “You did it again,” Tyson says, affronted. “You fucking managed me.”

“If you didn’t take an entire hour on your hair every time we go anywhere, I wouldn’t need to,” says Nate. He pats Tyson on the back. “I don’t know why you bother. Nothing you do is gonna make that situation any better.”

They take their seats, Nate ignoring Tyson’s continued bitching in favor of making faces at EJ across three rows of chairs. The wedding planner quarantined all the hockey players towards the back of the groom’s side, which is most likely for the best.

It would probably be impolite to start fanning himself with the program in the middle of the wedding ceremony, but they’re sitting in full sun and it’s fucking hot. Nate is starting to sweat in his nice wedding suit, and it’s a pain in the ass to get it dry cleaned. Maybe there’s some way he can subtly and casually unbutton his whole shirt to get some air.

While Nate’s trying to decide if he wants to be the first person to strip at this wedding, he hears a wet sniffle from the seat next to him. “Are you already crying?” Nate whispers to Tyson.

Tyson smacks him on the arm. “Shut up. This is a beautiful ceremony,” he says, choked up. He’s getting real teary, and Mel only just got to the end of the aisle. It’s going to be a long one.

“You’re so fucking gross,” says Nate. Momentarily distracted from his internal body temperature, Nate digs through his suit pockets and comes up with a crumpled, probably-clean Sonic napkin. He offers it to Tyson. Tyson snatches it out of his hand and swabs at his eyes. There’s a little patch of tater tot grease on it, but a little grease never hurt anybody.

The vows are sappy as fuck. It’s cute or whatever, but Nate’s kinda distracted by Tyson hiccupping in the seat next to his. Then Gabe starts crying, which is only going to set Tyson off more.

“Fuck,” Tyson says thickly. “Hashtag Landys in love.”

Nate slings a comforting arm around Tyson, patting his opposite shoulder. This way he can comfort Tyson and air out his pits a little bit at the same time. “They sure are, buddy.”

+

Nate claps his way through a good chunk of the reception, including a bunch of speeches and some steak thing for dinner, without paying any attention at all. Tyson, in the chair next to him, spends the entire time paying close and slightly teary attention while pretending to hate it. Finally, they get to the cake and booze part of the night. He and Tyson rock paper scissors for who has to go scrounge up some champagne, and Nate loses again in best of five.

“I think you must be cheating,” Nate says.

“How is it even possible to cheat at rock paper scissors,” Tyson says, with a wide-eyed look that heavily implies he found a way.

When Nate comes back bearing flutes of champagne, his chair has been stolen by some older lady in a very ruffly dress. She’s close-talking at Tyson, who is close-talking right back. Nate thinks she might be Mel’s aunt, but she’s blonde enough to be related to Gabe too. Who knows.

As Nate approaches, he hears Tyson say, “—we’re on Gabe’s team. No, Gabe’s. You know, I don’t actually know if Mel is on any teams?”

“You’re lucky, bud.” The delicate little glasses look kind of stupid in Nate’s hands, but he offers it up anyway. “They almost ran out.”

The aunt, or possibly much older cousin, looks delighted by Nate’s entrance. “So when will it be your special day, hmm?”

Tyson looks at Nate. Nate looks at Tyson. The aunt, or possibly family friend, looks between both of them. She giggles into her wine. “Sorry, I don’t mean to presume. It’s just such a romantic evening.”

“I, uh,” says Tyson.

“Oh, we don’t,” says Nate.

“We’re not—”

“We aren’t, like, engaged?” Nate can feel a confused blush creeping up the back of his neck. He has a feeling they’re having slightly different conversations.

“Oh, you aren’t engaged yet! So much possibility,” the aunt, or maybe very young grandma, titters.

“Haha,” says Tyson, who is not great with middle aged ladies.

“Yep, possibility, for sure,” says Nate, who normally kills it with older women and is struggling a little bit with this one in particular. “Well, we’re, uh, just friends. Keeping each other company on this very romantic evening.”

She sets her wine glass down on the floor next to her chair, and then leans over a little precariously to grab one of each of their hands. “You two are too cute, stop it! Don’t worry, there’s still so! Much! Time!” She knocks their hands together like the world’s weirdest, tipsiest game of patty cake. Nate is still holding two mostly-full flutes of champagne, and Tyson swoops in with his free hand to prevent a spill, reaching over to steady the glasses.

The aunt tilts her head like a bird. “You are such a nice young gentleman, do you think you could tell me where you found that champagne?”

Sensing an opportunity to escape, Nate says, “Uh, I could go grab you some real quick—”

“Oh, no, no!” She lets go of their hands to wave her own in Nate’s face dismissively. “No, I couldn’t split up the happy couple here. I’ll go find it myself.”

She boosts herself up on Nate’s bicep, pulling him down into an awkward half squat next to the table, then wanders off into the crowd, not at all in the direction of the bar. She leaves her wine glass on the floor. Nate sets their champagne down before scooping up her glass and sitting in the chair she just vacated. Judging by the relative states of intoxication around the room, that glass would have become a real hazard in about 45 minutes.

The table is really quiet now that she’s gone, a little bubble of weirdness in the noisy reception. Nate just kind of blinks at Tyson. Tyson looks him in the eye and takes a long, slurping sip of his champagne.

Nate shrugs. “Huh.”

Tyson shrugs back. “Huh for sure. At least she left her cake.”

“I assume you already ate mine?”

“Oh, of course,” Tyson says, planting his fork in Mel’s aunt’s cake and dragging the whole plate over to himself.

Nate doesn’t mind. He’s not that into coconut, and he’s about three days out from having to think about a nutrition plan again. He sips his champagne. Tyson applies himself to the cake.

Nate’s most of the way through his champagne, idly considering finding some more, when Tyson’s head pops up like he’s been electrocuted. He stops scraping frosting off the aunt’s plate and says, through a mouthful of fondant, “Holy shit, this is my song.”

“I will give you money if you say that about fewer than ten songs tonight,” says Nate, who has definitely heard that one before. He honestly can’t even identify the song playing.

“Shut the fuck up, I’m so serious.” Tyson bobs his head to the beat as people start trickling onto the dance floor. “Come dance with me.”

Nate leans back in his chair. “Nope, no way. I’m not even halfway drunk enough yet.”

Tyson snags a glass off the table and offers it up. It’s half full and very pink. “What even is that?” Nate asks.

Tyson wafts it under Nate’s nose. “They’re calling it a Mel-Garita. I have no clue what’s in it besides maybe grapefruit and almost definitely tequila.”

“Are themed drinks a wedding thing?” Nate says, genuinely bewildered.

“No idea. Isn’t it tacky as fuck?” Tyson looks delighted by it all. “God, they’re so in love they don’t even care how stupid this is.”

Nate shrugs and takes a sip of the Mel-Garita. It tastes like maybe grapefruit and almost definitely tequila. It’s nasty. Nate doesn’t even like tequila that much. He’s officially old enough now to have alcohol preferences besides just “any,” anyway. He passes it back to Tyson, who immediately downs the rest.

Without even thinking, Nate comes out with “Hey, reverse kiss. Ha.” It’s like his brain just time-traveled back to grade school.

“What?” says Tyson, crunching an ice cube.

“You know. It’s when you drink out of the same thing, so your mouths, like, kinda touch. You know what that is.”

“How old are you? God, I knew you were, like, a thousand years younger than me, but come on.”

The blush that receded when the aunt left their table comes roaring back. “Not my fault you’re an old fucking man,” says Nate. “I’m still in touch with my youth.” He plants a foot on Tyson’s chair and pushes it away from him. Tyson laughs as it squeaks horribly across the polished floor.

“There’s no escaping old age, bud. Speaking of things you can’t escape,” he announces, looking theatrically at his watch, “This is still my jam, and we’ve officially hit the point in the night where if you’re not drunk enough to dance it is your own damn fault.”

“This isn’t even the same song,” Nate points out in a last ditch effort to keep sitting down.

Tyson shimmies at Nate from his chair. It looks like more of a threat than a dance move. “Nice try. Every song is my jam.”

Nate tips his head back and groans, but he stands up anyway. Tyson whoops, leaping out of his own chair and grabbing Nate by the wrist to drag him onto the dance floor. Nate briefly considers making himself immovable. He doesn’t have to be dragged anywhere. But it’ll be easier just to go along. Probably more fun too, but telling Tyson that would be giving up.

“Is there a friend version of whipped?” Nate asks as Tyson tows him along. “Because that’s what I am.”

“Y’all are cute,” says Josty, who materializes out of the crowd in front of them, JT in tow as per usual.

“Y’all?” says Tyson. “You’re from _Alberta_.”

Josty just leers at them in a slightly cross-eyed way. At least one of his hands is fully inside JT’s shirt. Possibly both. Love is truly in the air. “So who got to be the plus one?” Josty asks.

“What?” says Nate.

“Are you trying to ask who tops?” Tyson asks. “Because if so, nobody. Nate is here as my friend date.”

“Also I did get my own invite,” says Nate, a little confused. Josty snorts.

“Have you guys tried the Gabe and Tonic?” JT asks, lifting a glass. “‘S not even that bad.”

“Nah. I’m here for the Mel-Garitas, though,” Tyson says thoughtfully.

“Gross,” says Nate, but no one listens.

+

Nate ends up being maybe the fifth person to strip, after Gabe does what might be generously called a dance to Crazy in Love. Nate doesn’t even strip the most. He only takes off his jacket and shoves his tie in his pants pocket, unlike some. Also he unbuttons most of his shirt, but even Mel and Gabe’s million dollar venue can’t keep a dance floor from being hot as fuck.

Tyson still has his look a little more together, which might be a warning sign. He’s clearly having the time of his life.

Neither of them is even a little bit good at dancing, but they’re doing their best. Nate likes to kind of just bob his head a little bit. Sometimes he’ll experiment with moving his arms. Hip movements are usually a no-go, much less the feet.

Tyson is less reserved. He’s blushing bright red and grinning, like he knows he’s embarrassing himself and he doesn’t really care. This is business as usual for Tyson. He wouldn’t be caught dead doing anything less than going all out.

A big circle of teammates and teammate’s dates and Landy’s asshole Swedish friends gradually forms up in the center of the dance floor. Nate narrowly avoids getting shoved into the middle, escaping only by pushing Tyson in instead. Naturally Tyson is into it, doing something completely inexplicable with his hips. The crowd cheers. Nate yells along with them. He tries to do the loud fingers-in-the-mouth whistling thing, but he ends up just sort of screaming into his hands while accidentally pouring beer down his neck.

“Back that ass up, Barrie,” someone with a Swedish accent yells, and Tyson obliges.

Friend date, Nate thinks. Best buddies having platonic fun. Tyson is now grinding on Nate in a fun, platonic way. Tyson is pressing his ass to Nate’s crotch as a joke, because they’re friends.

Nate shrugs internally. Whatever. They’ve done weirder bits before.

+

After maybe one million hours of dancing, Nate and Tyson retreat to their table. Nate has arrived at the point in the night where the Mel-Garitas don’t taste so bad anymore and the Gabe and Tonic doesn’t seem like such a dumb idea. Tyson sweat through his whole shirt and part of the way through Nate’s. He’s still leaning hard on Nate’s shoulder. They might, at this point, be a little bit stuck together.

They plop down in some chairs that are sort of familiar looking. Tyson immediately picks up somebody’s picked over, abandoned plate of cake and pokes at it with a fork, more playing with it than eating it. He only takes a bite before setting it back on the table with a clink and heaving a sigh.

“You’re gonna get mono if you keep eating strangers’ food,” Nate says.

“Why am I still single?” Tyson blearily asks. “Like, I have a great personality, I’m very cute, I’m at least sort of smart. What’s up with that?”

Nate thinks for a second. That’s a really good question, because Tyson _is_ very cute with a great personality, and he is sort of smart. Much smarter than Nate, anyway.

“I dunno, bud. You’re a catch.”

Tyson tips over and rests his forehead on Nate’s shoulder. “Aw, that’s sweet of you. Stop being nice to me, I’ll like you less.” He plants a hand on Nate’s knee to keep from overbalancing.

The DJ is blasting something slow and sappy. Nate’s not really listening anymore. He’s just focused on the weight of Tyson’s head on his shoulder and Tyson’s hand idly scrunching up the fabric of his pants.

“Hey,” says Nate. He nudges Tyson, very gently. “One more dance? It’s my duty as your friend date to make sure you get a dumb romantic slow dance, right?”

Tyson leans up slowly, propping himself up on the same part of Nate’s arm that the aunt grabbed hours ago. It feels better when Tyson does it. “Why the fuck not. Gotta get the full wedding experience,” he says.

They weave their way over to the dance floor. It’s been an embarrassingly long time since Nate danced with somebody like this, and he’s pretty sure his last slow dance partner was his cousin’s nine-year-old daughter, but he remembers the principles. He wraps his arms around Tyson’s waist and Tyson gets his around Nate’s neck and they just sort of lean. Nate doesn’t have the strongest grip on rhythm at the best of times, but he’s pretty sure they’re swaying to something in the general neighborhood of the beat.

“Your hairline doesn’t look any better from this angle, if you were curious,” Nate says, looking down at the top of Tyson’s head. Tyson stomps on his foot. At some point a new song might start playing, but they keep dancing.

After a while, Tyson says, “I’ve been thinking.”

“Oh shit,” Nate teases.

“Don’t start, MacKinnon,” Tyson says, smacking Nate on the side of his neck. “That’s too easy. I taught you better than that.”

Nate pats Tyson on the hip, which is the only place he can reach without disentangling them completely. He doesn’t want to disentangle. “Lay it on me, buddy.”

Tyson heaves a sigh into Nate’s shoulder. “Okay, it’s like--I talk a big game about how dumb all this romance stuff is. But at the end of the day, I’m really into it.”

Nate nods, pressing his chin gently into the top of Tyson’s head. Right on the spot where Tyson’s kind of balding, but he doesn’t say anything about it. He has a weird little urge to tilt his head down and kiss Tyson on the forehead, but he doesn’t do that either.

“And it kinda makes me wonder when I’m gonna get this, you know? Gabe is younger than me. JT and Josty are _both_ younger than me, and look at them,” Tyson says, nodding over Nate’s shoulder. They rotate so Nate can see JT and Josty, still draped all over each other on the far side of the dance floor.

Nate spins them back around and says, “Well, at least I’m still single.”

“You better stay that way,” says Tyson, fake threatening. He tightens his hold on Nate, leaning his forehead on Nate’s shoulder. “Can’t leave me alone.”

“Nah, who knows what kind of bullshit you’d get into.”

Neither of them says anything for a little while. That’s what Nate likes about Tyson: as much as he’s willing to say every thought that comes through his head, he’s okay with a little silence every once in a while. Unlike some guys, he’s not gonna say something just to say something. He likes a good moment, and so does Nate. So they just spin for a little bit, pressed chest to chest and cheek to cheek.

Tyson snorts quietly, popping their little quiet bubble, but Nate doesn’t mind. “Sorry to get sappy with you. Weddings make me all emotional. Weddings and tequila,” Tyson says.

Nate shrugs. “It’s a sappy night.” He looks over the room, with the mood lighting and the flowers and the other straggler couples dizzily swaying across the dance floor. In the corner, JT and Josty have absorbed a shoeless girl in a bridesmaid’s dress into their little cluster. Mel and Gabe are nowhere to be seen, but an older couple that might be Gabe’s parents is still dancing under the lights at the center of the room.

The old folks sway in place, holding each other with their heads on each other’s shoulders and, Nate realizes, mirroring him and Tyson. It’s nice. He imagines him and Tyson will be like that, at some dumb kid’s expensive wedding thirty years in the future. They’ll still be best friends at that point, probably. Nate hopes they will be. Together forever. _TB + NM_ in a heart carved on the side of a tree. Except they would probably have to do some shape other than a heart, because they’re just here as friend dates.

They rotate again. Tyson tilts his head, and Nate knows he’s looking at the old couple too.

“God, I hate how much I like love,” Tyson sighs, then plants his feet. Nate is a little thrown off, but Tyson doesn’t move. He just looks up at Nate like he has something important to say.

Tyson doesn’t say anything. Instead, he shifts his hands from Nate’s shoulders to Nate’s jaw, tilts his head, and kisses him. It’s not a bad kiss. It’s really, really not a bad kiss, there under the purplish lights with orchids all over the place and some mushy wedding song playing in the background.

“Oh,” Nate says when they lean apart. “Yeah, okay.”

Tyson nods. “Uh-huh. This works for me if it works for you.”

Nate blinks. He tightens his hold on Tyson’s waist. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah. I’d be down if you are.”

“Obviously I’m down,” Tyson says. “I’m the one that made a move.”

“Cool,” Nate says.

He remembers earlier, when he wanted to kiss Tyson’s head. That barrier has clearly been broken, so Nate goes right ahead and does it. He plants a quick kiss right on Tyson’s hairline.

“If you make one more joke about my hair, I swear to god I will leave this wedding right now and run away to Victoria and you will never see me again,” Tyson says.

“It’s okay. I’m gonna stick with you even while you’re going bald,” says Nate. “So you’ll get a good two, maybe three years out of me.”

“Okay, fuck you, bye forever,” says Tyson, but he doesn’t go anywhere.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> hopefully it wasn't TOO obvious that i have not been to a wedding since i was 6! this was brought to you by: daniel wilson’s song proofread (aka the ultimate dance floor love confession jam), [ gabe’s wedding video](https://hoofilms.com/blog/melissa-gabe), and my linguistics readings, which i did not do bc i was writing this.
> 
> come say hey on [ tumblr!](http://softbarrie.tumblr.com/)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] you swoon, you sigh](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16812742) by [growlery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/growlery/pseuds/growlery)




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